Knitting method and knitted garment

ABSTRACT

A knitted sleeved garment comprises front and rear upper body portions constituted by two pieces of flat fabric having side edges joined, on the knitting machine, with the ends of sleeves knitted on the machine. A method of machine knitting such a garment is also described.

United States Patent Betts et al. [451 Aug. 1, 1972 [54] KNITTING METHOD AND KNITTED [56] References Cited ARMENT G UNITED STATES PATENTS [72] Inventors: Max William Betts, Coventry; Frank Borrowash, both f 3,474,643 10/1969 Robinson etal ..66/70 gland Primary Examiner-Ronald Feldbaum [73] Asslgnee' g ggg Lmuted London Attorney-Davis, l-loxie,-Faithfull & Hapgood [22] Filed: Aug. 17, 1970 [57] ABSTRACT [21] Appl. No.2 64,590 A knitted sleeved garment comprises front and rear upper body portions constituted by two pieces of flat 1 fabric having side edges joined, on the knitting [30] Foreign Application f Dam machine, with the ends of sleeves knitted on the Aug. 26, Great Britain machine. A method of machine such av garment is also described. .[52] U.S.C1 ..66/176 [51] Int. Cl. ..A4lb 9/06 5 Claim, 5 Drawing Figures [58] Field of Search; ..66/176, 174, 175, 171

PATENTEDMIG' 1 I972 3,680,333

sum 1 OF 2 Inventors MAX WILLIAM BETTS FRANK ROBINSON B n/v Hamid W v H'fm PATENTED/ws 11912 3.630.333

SHEET 2 0F 2 25: g M- Q Q @(o 0W y, Dan/w Mum} fiLLLETfLCf KNITTING METHOD AND KNITTED GARMENT This invention relates to knitted garments and to methods of knitting garments. Garments according to the invention can be knitted on a flat bar knitting machine having at least one pair of opposed needle beds, means for operating the needles independently of one another and yarn carriers to supply yarn for the production of knitted loops on the needles.

The methods normally employed for making garments involve a considerable amount of making up and an object of this invention is to provide knitted garments and methods of making them which involve considerably less making up than conventional garments and methods of making them.

A knitted sleeved garment according to the invention comprises front and rear upper body portions constituted by two pieces of flat fabric having side edges joined, on the knitting machine, with ends of sleeves knitted on the machine.

A method according to the invention of machine knitting a sleeved garment includes knitting front and rear upper body portions of the garment as flat fabric and joining the side edges of these portions, on the machine, with ends of sleeves also knitted on the machine.

The joining of the ends of the sleeves to the side edges of the front and rear upper body portions can be carried out by first knitting the sleeves in tubular form and holding end stitches thereof on needles of the machine and subsequently knitting the front and rear upper body portions as pieces of flat fabric, on the machine, and inter-meshing stitches of the said portions with the said end stitches of the sleeves. For example, a loop at the end of a wale of the sleeve can be transferred to a needle holding a loop at the end of a course of one of the upper body portions so that on knitting the next course of this body portion, an end loop of the said next course is pulled through both the end loop of the preceding course of the body portion and the said transferred loop of a sleeve. The adjacent end loop of the sleeve is then transferred to the needle carrying the end loop of the said next bodycourse and these two loops are joined by pulling a single loop and so on.

A portion of the end region of each sleeve may be knitted so as to constitute part of a tube by forming this portion of U-shaped courses of knitting on two opposed beds of the machine.

In the manner just described, the joining of the sleeves to the body is effected during knitting of the upper body portions and by the knitting action of the needles of the machine. The upper body portions are knitted so as to form one piece of knitted fabric with the sleeves.

Normally, as the knitting of the upper body portions proceeds, the sleeves will be moved inwardly towards one another to present successive end loops of the sleeve wales for knitting with the end loops of courses of the upper body portions. The courses of the upper body portions may be progressively shortened or lengthened as the knitting of these portions proceeds.

In knitting garments according to the invention on a flat bar knitting machine, the sleeves are preferably knitted on auxiliary knitting beds movable longitudinally of the main beds of the machine.

The term course is used generally in the knitting art and in this specification to mean a row of loops in the fabric formed in the direction along the needle beds. A wale is a column of loops comprising loops in successive courses.

The invention will now be further described, by way of example, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 shows a garment according to the invention,

FIGS. 2a, 2b and 2c are a series of diagrammatic representations of stages in the knitting of the garment of FIG. 1 on a flat bar knitting machine with opposed needle beds, and

FIG. 3 is a similar view to FIG. 1 showing another garment according to the invention.

The garmentshown in FIG. 1 comprises a tubular body portion 5 with a front upper body portion 6 and a corresponding rear upper body portion 6 (FIG. 2b), the two upper body portions being knitted as flat pieces of fabric each on one of the two opposed needle beds of a flat bar V-bed knitting machine. Two tubular sleeves 7 and 8 also knitted on the machine are joined at their ends to the side edges of the two upper body portions, the two joins 9 and 10 between the sleeves and the body portion 6 being shown in FIG. 1. The direction of the wales in sleeve 7 is indicated by the lines 13. The direction of the wales in the body portion 6 is indicated by the lines 14. Courses run in each case perpendicular to the wales and thus the joining of the sleeves to the upper body portions involves joining stitches at the ends of wales of the sleeves with stitches at the ends of courses of the body portions 6 and 6'.

A machine which can be used to knit the present garment is a modified version of the machine described in British Pat. Specification No. 991,943. This modified machine is a V-bed knitting machine having two pairs of auxiliary beds movable longitudinally of the main beds of the machine, each auxiliary bed having considerably more needles than in the auxiliary beds of British Pat. Specification No. 991 ,943. The machine incorporates needles capable of transferring stitches to other needles of the machine.

The normal take down mechanism which is arrange to pull the fabric evenly from the needles of a V-bed knitting machine across the whole width of the machine is unsatisfactory. The machine should therefore have web-holding sinkers in place of the normal take down mechanism. Alternatively, the machine may have a presser foot as described in British Pat. Specification No. 867,678, or as described in co-pending application, Ser. No. 874,938 of K. Jeffcoat and M.W. Betts filed Nov. 7, 1969 now US. Pat. No. 3,613,401, and assigned to the same assignee as the present application.

In the first stage of knitting the garment of FIG. 1 by the method now to be described, the tubular portion 5 of the body of the garment and the sleeves 7 and 8 each constituted by a piece of tubular fabric are knitted from the waist and cuffs respectively. The part 5 of the body is knitted on the main needle beds 17, 18 of the machine (FIG. 2). The sleeves 7 and 8 are knitted on separate pairs of auxiliary beds of the machine, the auxiliary beds being movable longitudinally of the main beds I7, 18 of the machine. The methods of knitting the two sleeves 7 and 8 and of joining them to the upper body portions are identical and therefore only the joining of the sleeve 7 to the body will be described. The sleeve 7 is knitted on auxiliary beds 19, 20 of the machine (FIG. 2).

At the stage reached in FIG. 2a, the tubular body portion 5 and the tubular sleeve 7 are completed and are hanging from the beds of the machine. In the diagrammatic representation of FIG. 2, the front and rear of the body 5 are shown as having a width of only seven the end of a course inwardly before carrying out the procedure described above to effect the sleeve-to-body oin.

In the garment shown in FIG. 3, the sleeves 7 and 8 are knitted as tubular fabric as far as the lines 33, 34 and thereafter the portions 35, 36 of the sleeves are stitches and the sleeve 7 is shown as having a width of knitted as pieces of U-shaped fabric on the pairs of auxonly five stitches although in practice many more stitches would be used.

The knitting of the front upper body portion 6 and the rear upper body portion 6 as flat pieces of fabric using yarn from separate yarn carriers is now begun and these body portions are joined, during the process of knitting the portions to the two sleeves 7 and 8 simultaneously. FIGS. 2b and 20 show successive stages in joining the sleeve 7 to the adjacent side edges of the upper body portions. In FIGS. 2b and 2c the stitches which have just been knitted in the course under consideration are shown as circles around the needles, whereas the stitches knitted during previous courses, are held on inactive needles, are shown as squares around the needles.

The join is produced by knitting courses of the body portions on the opposed main needle beds 17 and 18 using a separate yarn carrier to supply yarn for each bed. The innen'nost loops 23, 24 of the end. of the sleeve are then transferred on to the needles of the main bed carrying the loops 25, 26 at the adjacent ends of the two newly formed courses of the upper body portions 6 and. 6', the auxiliary beds 19 and 20 being moved inwardly to allow this transfer to be made. These stitch transfers are afiected by means of the transfer needles incorporated in the machine. A further course of each of the upper body portions is then knitted on the main needle beds and a single loop 27, 28 respectively, of each of these courses is drawn through the pairs of loops 23, 25 and 24, 26.

In FIG. 2c, these further courses of the upper body portions 6, 6 are shown as having been knitted. The beds 19 and 20 have been moved inwards again and further sleeve loops 29, 30 have been transferred to the needles of the main beds carrying the outermost loops 27, 28 of the new courses of the upper body portions. A further course will now be knitted on each of the upper body portions, an end loop of each of these courses being pulled through the pairs of loops, further transfers of sleeve loops will be made and so on until the sleeve to body joins are complete.

When the joins 9 and have been completed and all the sleeve loops have been joined to the body, a single course of rib knitting can be formed across the top of the body by supplying yarn from a single carrier to needles of both mainbeds 17 and 18 in order to join the upper ends of the front and rear upper body portions 6, 6 together.

In knitting the garment of FIG. 1, each course of each of the upper body portions 6, 6' is arranged to have the same number of stitches and the side edges of the upper body portions thus remain parallel to one another. The courses of the upper body portions can, however, be made progressively longer or shorter so as to cause the sleeves to lie at an angle other than a right being located at the inner end of the respective pair of auxiliary beds. Successive needles at the inner ends of the auxiliary bedsare taken out of action and are main tained holding their loops after the knitting of successive courses so that the U-shaped courses of the portions 35, 36 become progressively shorter to. give these portions the shape shown in FIG. 3. Y

The sleeves 7 and 8 can be joined to the upper body portions of the garment of FIG. 3 in a similar manner to that in which the sleeves 7 and 8 are joined to the upper body portions of the garment of FIG. 1 but the courses of the portion 37 of the front upper body portion 6 of the garment of FIG. 3 and. the courses of the corresponding part of the rear upper body portion of the garment are made successively shorter so that the upper body portions of the garment are shaped to mate with the portions 35, 36 of the sleeves. In this way the set-in sleeve as shown in FIG. 3 is produced.

The diagonal portions 9', 10', of the sleeve-to-body joins can however be effected by a procedure other than a knitting procedure using the normal knitting elements of the machine. For example, these portions of the joins can be made by means of a linking or stitching procedure using means mounted on the knitting machine.

What is claimed is:

1. A method for knitting a garment having sleeves and front and .rear upper body portions on a V-bed knitting machine having two opposed main beds and two pairs of opposed auxiliary beds transversely movable with respect to said main beds, which method comprises knitting the sleeves of said garment as tubes on the auxiliary beds of said machine, knitting the front and rear upper body portions of the garment as pieces of flat fabric on the opposed main beds of said machine and joining the side edges of said front and rear upper body portions to the upper ends of said sleeve by intermeshing stitches.

2. A method as claimed in claim 1, in which the joining of the ends of the sleeves to the side edges of the front and rear upper body portions is carried out by first knitting the sleeves in tubular form and holding end stitches thereof on needles of the machine and subsequently knitting the front and rear upper body portions as pieces of flat fabric, on the machine, and intermeshing stitches of the said portions with the said end stitches of the sleeves.

3. A method as claimed in claim 2 in which the said interrneshing of stitches is effected by transferring four loops, two at the ends of separate wales of one sleeve, and two at the ends of separate wales of the other sleeve, to the four needles holding loops at the ends of the courses of the upper body portions so that, on knitting the next courses of these body portions, each end loop of these courses is pulled through both the end loop of the preceding course of the body portion and a transferred loop of a sleeve.

4. A method as claimed in claim 1 in which a portion of the end region of each sleeve is knitted so as to con- 

1. A method for knitting a garment having sleeves and front and rear upper body portions on a V-bed knitting machine having two opposed main beds and two pairs of opposed auxiliary beds transversely movable with respect to said main beds, which method comprises knitting the sleeves of said garment as tubes on the auxiliary beds of said machine, knitting the front and rear upper body portions of the garment as pieces of flat fabric on the opposed main beds of said machine and joining the side edges of said front and rear upper body portions to the upper ends of said sleeve by intermeshing stitches.
 2. A method as claimed in claim 1, in which the joining of the ends of the sleeves to the side edges of the front and rear upper body portions is carried out by first knitting the sleeves in tubular form and holding end stitches thereof on needles of the machine and subsequently knitting the front and rear upper body portions as pieces of flat fabric, on the machine, and intermeshing stitches of the said portions with the said end stitches of the sleeves.
 3. A method as claimed in claim 2 in which the said intermeshing of stitches is effected by transferring four loops, two at the ends of separate wales of one sleeve, and two at the ends of separate wales of the other sleeve, to the four needles holding loops at the ends of the courses of the upper body portions so that, on knitting the next courses of these body portions, each end loop of these courses is pulled through both the end loop of the preceding course of the body portion and a transferred loop of a sleeve.
 4. A method as claimed in claim 1 in which a portion of the end region of each sleeve is knitted so as to constitute part of a tube by forming this portion of U-shaped courses of knitting formed on the two opposed beds of the machine.
 5. A method as claimed in claim 1 in which the courses of the upper body portions are progressively altered in length as the knitting of these portions proceeds. 